Джон Макдональд - The Hunted [Short Story]

In one corner was a smaller box and on top of it was a strange machine. Smaller bones were on the floor near the machine. Smaller bones and wisps of long pale hair. He could smell ancient death. His skin prickled.

The machine was rusted. It had a black roll across the top of it, and in the roll was a fragment of scorched paper. With a blow of his club he drove the machine off the smaller box. It fell in a reddish cloud of dust and rust.

Suddenly he remembered the danger. It would be wise to find out if there were another way to get to this place. He ran down the corridor, looking in each room, trying to find some place that led down. In most of the rooms there were machines and bones and the smell of dust.

At last he found a place where stairs led down. It made him angry. He growled low in his throat. The masters could come up this way.

If it was not blocked.

He went down many lengths of the stairs, going ever lower, and then he rounded a corner, fought for balance, his mind sick with fear. Below him was emptiness for fifty feet, and below that, the building started again. It was as though huge jaws had taken a bite out of the side of the building.

Returning, he went back up the stairs. He went back beyond the floor where he had climbed out of the shaft. The stairs ended. Above him was wood. He pushed against it and it opened with a creak of rusty hinges. He was out in the air. He was on a flat place bigger than the pen. It was surrounded with a low stone wall. He went to the wall, looked cautiously over. The street was a dizzy distance away.

Even as he looked he saw one of the floating platforms far below, cruising down the street. He growled deep in his throat. Two of the masters were on the front edge of the floating platform. His keen eyes saw that they did not hold the silver tubes. Instead, they held the thick, stubby, black rods with the glowing coil above the barrel.

Peter knew those rods. He had seen one used, on a man who had been blinded in one of the fights in the pen.

The master had pointed it. There had been a thick noise, like a husky cough, and the blinded man’s head had disappeared, blood spouting from the neck stump.

They were looking for Peter to kill him with those black rods. He snarled. Then his eyes widened in quick interest.

As the floating platform speeded up, he saw a naked man leap from behind a pile of rubble, hurl a stone at the two masters. Without seeing where his stone landed, the man turned and ran.

Peter smiled in satisfaction as one of the masters toppled from the platform. The other one aimed the rod. The running man threw up his arms, stumbled and rolled in the cluttered street, was still, his blood bright and red in the sunshine. The platform settled to the pavement. The master who had killed the man hurried back to his companion. He leaned over him.

Suddenly Peter realized that they were almost below him. He looked around for something to drop on them. Then he saw that the railing was made of large stones that had been fitted together. The substance which had fastened them together was crumbled.

He put his hands on the edge of it, braced his feet and pulled. The muscles stood out on his arms and shoulders. He pulled until the world went red in front of him, and slowly the stone came free, dropped onto the roof.

He looked over the edge. They were still down there. But they were some distance from the wall of the building. The stone would have to be hurled away from the building.

The sharp edges cut into his thighs, tore the flesh as he picked it up. By great effort he got it above his head, both palms flat against it. His legs shook.

He moved to the edge. They were still there, but the one who had been hit by the stone was sitting up. There was little time left. He moved a foot to the left, then took two quick steps, pushing the big stone as far out from the side of the building as he could. For a moment he thought he was going to follow-it over, but he caught the edge with his hand.

Fascinated, he watched the huge stone dwindle, turning over slowly.

He thought it had gone beyond them, then suddenly they were blotted out. The white stone leaped into a hundred shattered pieces. After he had seen the pieces fly, he heard the crash.

Where the stone had hit there were clots of white pulp against the gray pavement, and a thin, watery substance.

The floating platform rested there, waiting for the ones who would not return. On the forward edge of it was one of the black rods.

Slowly the idea came to him that soon another one of the masters would come. The master would see the bodies, see the fractured stone.

Then he would look up, see the roof, come up after him on one of the platforms. That was a way of getting to the top of the building that he had not considered.

Thus his building was not good. Not a safe place.

But if a man could have one of those platforms...

He ran down the flights of stairs to the corridor, jumped down to the top of the box, squeezed down between the box and the wall, swung across to the cable and slid down. The heat of the friction seared his hands. At last he thumped against the floor, climbed out through the broken grille and went to the street door. Flies buzzed over the body of the man who had been shot down as he had tried to run. The black rod had bitten a head-sized hole through his torso.

All sense alert, Peter stood inside the doorway. There was no sound, no scent of the masters. He ran to the floating platform. He did not even look toward the white pulp of the two masters he had slain.

At first he made a motion to push the fearful black rod off onto the street. Then curiosity got the better of him. He picked it up, sighted it the way the master had done, and touched the button set into the side of the barrel. The body of the man up the street jumped and slid several feet further away.

He tried to remember how he had seen them work the platforms, and felt angry with himself because he had not watched more closely. The platform was of a silvery metal, and was as wide as he was tall, and twice as long. It was as thick as his thigh. Two tiny levers, made for the masters’ childlike hands, protruded through two slots near the front of it.

He grasped one lever and pulled it back. The ascent was so rapid that it forced him down against the platform. By the time he overcame his shock and surprise, and got the lever pushed forward again, he was higher than the roof he had been on. Much higher.

In fear he pushed the lever too far forward. The drop was sickening. He brought it back to the halfway mark and the platform hung motionless in the air, moving slightly toward the building because that was the direction of the wind.

The slot for the other lever was bigger. He found that the second lever would move in any direction. More cautious than he had been with the first lever, he moved it to the left and the platform moved slowly away from the side of the building. He pulled the first lever back slightly, waited until he was above the roof, and then pushed the second lever to the right. The platform floated over the roof. He pushed the first lever slowly forward until the platform settled onto the roof with an awkward jar.

He made a warm sound of pleasure, scratched his chest and looked at the platform with pride of possession.

It was then that he heard the distant cough. A section of the stone railing flew off, and the rock dust bit into his face, stinging him so that tears came to his eyes.

With one motion, he snatched the black rod, whirled and dropped flat behind the railing. He scrambled far to one side on his belly, and then took a quick look. A second platform was coming up toward the roof on a long slant. One of the masters held a black rod. The second was guilding the platform.